Athena

We've seen all of season two of Game of Thrones now. I look forward to reading more of the books so I can find out what happens next . Part of season two is actually in book three part one (at least), so I'll first read some more familiar scenes but it should still be a lot of fun.

x x x x I'm glad to hear all the positive comments about The Snow Child. I'm currently on page 164, over a third of the way through but not yet half. I'm really enjoying it so far.

I hope you enjoy it when you read it .

Wow that must have been difficult . I'm glad you learned more about your dad's mum, it's great you have a photograph, although it's very sad that you've never met her .

x wow, I've never heard of such a thing happening! Do you know if they found the person who did it? x x You're welcome ! x x Wow! That's not nice at all ! @ the mysterious package I think you should open it when you get back from Nurmes!

Happy Birthday !! I hope you have a great day.

Congrats on the books, I hope you enjoy them !

I quite like Iplayer! I can't get it here, but when I was in the UK at my boyfriends' house we'd use it sometimes to watch TV programmes off. Did you get it sorted?

Great review! I recently read this and while I found some of the prose tedious, I love the story and what happens. It's so famous and it was great to finally read the original.

I started reading Eowyn Ivey - The Snow Child, so far it's pretty good. The pacing's a bit slow perhaps but I'm enjoying reading about the characters and their life. It's a great wintery read.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins? I don't know, just trying something. EDIT: Now that I think about it, that's not 20th century I think.. not sure when the books were written.. if it was before 2000 or after.

The Mind Gym - The Mind Gym 3: Relaties (Relationships) Genre: Information Format: Paperback Pages: 299 Synopsis (their own website): Whether it’s the boss, clients, friends or lovers, getting relationships right matters. This book shows how to make yours shine. Drawing on the latest research and the experience of 500,000 people who use Mind Gym, Relationships reveals how to: Be loved, respected and even obeyed Build trust in a moment that lasts for years Turn an angry argument into an unbreakable bond Get on with people who don’t get on with anyone else Repair a broken relationship so it’s stronger than ever You don’t even need to read this book. Fill in the questionnaire at the beginning and discover which chapters will help you and which to skip. My thoughts: This is the third Mind Gym book. I picked it up at a book fair, along with the first two books, because it sounded interesting, because I liked the cover and because I liked the layout of the book. This book is about relationships and how we can improve them. While I think not all chapters will be as useful to me, for example, there are chapters about arguments, I don't have a lot of arguments, there are some that will be useful. I might be too tired as of yet to really do a lot with the knowledge, but I liked reading about it and I know where the information is if I want to find it again. One chapter consisted of blog posts and replies between two (fictional) people, discussing a certain situation that was bothering one of them, at work. I thought this was a very original way of doing this, so I thought this was interesting. I do think my relationships work slightly different sometimes than most people's, for example one chapter discussed certain to's-and-fro's between two people. Because my brain is different, I think I might interpret certain things differently. But it was interesting to read about it, if this is how it works for most people. As with the first two books, I liked the layout, font, tests, frames. I didn't write out any tests this time, I kind of did them in my head because I knew what the answer would be or the situation wasn't totally applicable to me. With the book comes a code that you can use online to get more tests and information. I haven't done this yet. The second book also came with a code, which I haven't yet used either. Overall I thought it was interesting to read about a lot of these subjects. Other subjects discussed are how to be more charismatic, how to be kind, what to do with annoying people, how to solve a conflict in a calm way, and more. Note that these titles are what I make of them, not what the chapters are called (the chapters have better names). Rating: ***** (9/10)

Charles Dickens - Christmas Books Genre: Literature Format: Paperback Pages: 383 Synopsis (back of the book): Each of these five short stories was written specifically for Christmas, and is infused with tremendous vitality as Dickens combines his concern for social ills with the myths and memories of childhood and traditional Christmas spirit-lore. The very words 'Merry Christmas' were first coined in A Christmas Carol, the first of these books, which ahs become a touchstone of English Christmas fiction, and an enduring favourite the world over. My thoughts: I bought this book at a book fair some time ago. With Christmas coming up, I thought it'd be a nice time to read this. Below follows a summary of each of the five stories and my thoughts specific to that story. First follow a number of general remarks. First off, there were some words I didn't know. I think they were mainly old-fashioned words, words that are no longer used much these days. I had to ask my boyfriend or look them up. Secondly, the writing style was very complicated. I felt a lot more could've been said in less space. Then, there were a lot of confusing metaphors, analogies and descriptions. They often didn't mean anything to me, I didn't understand what was meant. I've always had problems with metaphors, to me things are what they are and comparing them to other things that have in first light, nothing to do with each other, is confusing. Ie. (and I'm making this one up) 'his hair shone like the sun on a warm summer's day where the wind blows through the trees', doesn't tell me anything. 'His hair was beautiful and shiny', tells me more in much less space. I can see why, if you do understand the prose, it's great to read, but to me a lot of these words were useless input that I couldn't process. Some words were written with a capital, I didn't understand why. Baby, Blind Daughter, Cricket were all written with a capital, but old man, young man or chemist aren't. Several verbs were written with capitals too, such as Put Down, Ordained, Exulted (I have no idea what these last two mean anyway). What I found really confusing too, was that people were referred to by several names. For example, as Mr. Firstname, Mr. Lastname and as 'old man'. It was very confusing to me who was who. In the same conversation, you'd have "Mr. Firstname said", "Mr A said", "Mr. Lastname said" "Mr B said" "the old man said" and some of these people are the same person. I don't get why you'd switch in the middle of a conversation, it was very confusing. Why not call people by just one name? To me a thing has one name, or a first and a last name, to be used such as Firstname or Firstname Lastname or Mr. Lastname. The person shouldn't also be known as 'the young man' because how do I know which one of the company is the youngest? I thought the narrator was a bit odd too. I'm unsure who or what he's meant to be, but he seemed to, well not interfere, but give his own opinion on the matter a lot. I found it detracted me from the story. A Christmas Carol A mean man who doesn't care much about other people, is visited by three spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. This was by far my favourite of the stories. It really helped that I knew the story, I've seen it appear in for example video games and TV series. It was great to read the original. Rating: ***** (9/10) Chimes This story is about some bells and a man's life. I didn't get what happened at the end, it was confusing. Rating: *** (6/10) The Cricket on the Hearth This story is about some people. What was sad was that the Baby didn't have a name other than "Baby" and he didn't seem so important to his parents. They were much more busy with other things. I understand he's perhaps not important to the story but he seemed to not be very loved. My boyfriend told me later that often in those days babies didn't get their names until their christening ceremony, so that makes more sense then. I also wasn't sure if the cricket mentioned was a real cricket. I understood most of the plot of this story. Rating: *** (7/10) The Battle of Life This story is about a man and his two daughters and what happens in their lives. I was confused at the beginning, because the story talked about the two daughters dancing around, so it seemed to me that they were about 8 and 10 years old or something. It was strange how later on I found out they were actually more like teenagers, one of them being engaged to a man. There were a lot of characters, this was confusing. The sisterly love was quite weird, how the sisters behaved towards one another seemed a bit unrealistic to me. What happens is weird, I wouldn't call it immoral but weird at least.. (don't want to spoil it though) Rating: ** (4/10) The Haunted Man I abandoned this story after a while. The first few pages were all metaphors and descriptions I didn't understand, so I skipped through that. Then people were referred to under several names, so just when I thought I knew who 'the chemist' was, it turned out it was someone else. It was really confusing and I couldn't figure out who was who or what the point of the story was. After the pages of descriptions the characters then rambled on about a person's wife, and after that a man met a phantom. It was very confusing. Rating: * (1/10) Overall I expected more from the book. Dickens has been lauded as being very famous and very enjoyable to read. Unfortunately, the book became a slog for me. It could be that because of my tiredness (I've been very tired lately), I wasn't able to appreciate it as much as I perhaps otherwise could have. Overall I liked reading A Christmas Carol, great to read the original of that, but I didn't care much for the rest of the stories. It might have been better if I had read several other books in between each story, as to not overload on it, I don't know. I'm sorry to say I didn't like the book more than I did. It became a slog but once I made the decision to abandon the last story and to read something nicer and easier on the mind, I felt a whole lot better. I'm a bit worried now about all my other literature that's TBR. Earlier this year I read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and didn't enjoy it a lot either. I read some children's literature this year which I did enjoy (Black Beauty, The Little Prince). I have quite a few more books by Dickens on my TBR. I don't think I'll be attempting more literature any time soon , even though there's quite some of them on the TBR. Rating: *** (5/10)

This sounds interesting, great review !

I agree !

x Each place they usually go to annually, but various places are visited throughout the year. Here is a link to the schedule for the next while. I go to the places that are close to me that are easy to get to, always at least Eindhoven and Utrecht. I've never been to a Belgian one, because public transport across the border is pretty bad and I don't drive much anymore. It was great when they still visited Den Bosch but that hasn't happened in the last few years. I often go to Maastricht or Nieuwegein as well. x x Thanks, that's great to hear ! x x Thanks ! x x Thanks ! It's actually now 130 (once I've updated the first post and posted two more reviews). Thank you! x x That makes sense! x x I'm quite excited about reading it, I hope it'll be good .

x That's a pretty interesting name! I looked it up but it looks like he's just called Adrian here. Sorry, was hoping for something more interesting . x x I didn't know that, that is quite interesting! x x Awwwww!! x x Holland originally referred to two out of twelve provinces in the Netherlands (North and South Holland (Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland)). Because centuries ago, those parts were the richest and most important for the economy, people started to call the Netherlands, Holland. These days it's become synonymous with it and both names can be used. Personally I always use 'The Netherlands' because I believe the other provinces (ie. the one in which I live) were and are important too. But really, both names can be used .

x That's very nice to hear ! It's great that the two of you have a close connection. I hope you'll get to meet each other soon and have a brilliant time.

Nice haul! I think that cover looks quite interesting to be honest, but then the nowadays cover looks good as well.

Wow, great haul ! And very cheap, too!

x I hope you enjoy it !

Nice gifts ! Enjoy!

I hope some of the challenge books will be more fun than the other two books you mention, reading should be fun!

Nice work on all the threads, Claire. Good luck everyone with the challenge! I can at least say I've read one book for the challenge, A Christmas Carol, so when more of you have (re)read it, we could talk about it in the appropriate thread.

x Sounds great ! It's nice that we're pretty close, relatively speaking at least! Brughes (or Brugge as the Belgian and Dutch name for it is) is 'only' a two hour drive away. My brother has been there on holidays several times. I've never been there.